OK
1) Suddenly, all the meseges from the last 4 months (only from inbox) disapeared!
I Tried to restore it by "compact folders" - no success!
2) last night- thunderbird started to receive 6 messeges. a window pops : "6 new messeges".
I cuntinue with something i did on another program. when i came back to the thundirbird : NOTHING.
No new messeges.
Later i discovered that some people send me email around that time. emailes which i havent received.

I am really down because of this...
Is there any ay to restore these messeges?

I am a newbie and please do not think i know anything clever but I discovered something helpful to see if files are still available in your folders.

If you have view all file types extension activated in Windows then you can do a search (START/SEARCH) for all *.msf files to find where your Inbox files are kept by TB.
Then you can right-click on "Inbox.msf" and select "open containing folder".
Here you will find two "Inbox" files with same names but open the "Inbox" file which has no extension (I use wordpad). Here you will find all your emails that still remain.

I see on my pc that TB makes several copies of each msf file in different folders so check them all to see which is the right location for your message folders.

Guest

Guest

Posted November 11th, 2006, 3:54 pm

Just today I started having a similar problem. When I check my messages I get the "4 messages received" alert but then no new messages show up in my inbox, or junk, or anywhere. They just disappear! Obviously I can not continue to use thunderbird until I can figure out what's going on. Any help is appreciated! Thanks.

Just to add to this - I recently received a message which said "the sender has asked to confirm when you read this message" - when I just clicked "Cancel", the entire message then disappeared, and I haven't found it since!

More to add (I was the "Guest" who posted earlier), I've found that while my Junk folder appears to be empty when I open the "Junk" file in a text editor there's messages there. So I'm guessing that messages are getting filed as junk but for some reason not showing up in the junk folder in TB. I tried deleting the "Junk.msf" file and restarting TB but still nothing is appearing in the junk folder.

Since the update to 1.5.0.8, I have the same problem. Thunderbird said, it was downloading 2 messages, but only one appeared. When I look into the inbox file with an editor, I can see the other message there, but it is not displayed!

How recently have you compacted your folders? Compacting is something that needs to be done regularly in any email program. We recommend weekly, but many of us do it daily. When done often enough, it can be an extremely fast process. Not doing so can lead to problems like those you are experiencing. See this about how to and why it's so important: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders

If you haven't been doing that before, and 'compacting' them now (and leaving a long enough time for the process to complete) doesn't fully resolve the problem then do the following on each account:

Close Thunderbird. Find and delete all of the files with the .msf file extension in your profile folder/Mail http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Folder#Thunderbird including your Local Folders, especially if you are using the global inbox. You must have "View hidden files and folders" on http://spywarewarrior.com/viewtopic.php?t=272 and you need to set "hide extensions for known file types" off (just below View Hidden) if you are using Windows. These are your mail summary files and do not hold any messages themselves. They will be rebuilt the next time you open each folder in Thunderbird. Compact all your folders when you have completed this.

I do compact occasionally. I have just done it again, and I have deleted the msf files. Now, those messages which were not displayed before have disappeared from the inbox file (viewing it with an editor). Well, it was only spam, but I hope that won't happen again with important messages.

Guest

Guest

Posted November 11th, 2006, 6:13 pm

I tried you second suggestion. didnt worked either.
do you have any more advices?

Also, one user with BellSouth, found out that, coincidentally, the spam filtering got turned on at BellSouth at the same time that he updated.... This may help for those of you who don't see the messages in the mbox file.

ub-net

Guest

Posted November 11th, 2006, 6:41 pm

Hmm, I don't think my problems were related to the mail provider. I am using POP, and the hidden messages were definitely in my inbox file (with X-Mozilla-Status: 0000). Of course, I had View/Messages set to All.

Now that I have compacted and deleted the msf's, the problem hasn't reappeared. But I will keep an eye on it - after all, I never had those problems prior to 1.5.0.8.

Uwe

ub-net

Guest

Posted November 11th, 2006, 7:00 pm

I think there might actually be a problem in 1.5.0.8. I just made a small experiment: I took my original inbox file and deleted with an editor all but the last three messages (msf file was also deleted). Of the three messages, only the first and the third are displayed in Thunderbird. The second message appears to be hidden (although it has X-Mozilla-Status: 0000).